


No Current of Time

by heartstone



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Archaeology, Dreams and Nightmares, Far Future, Fourth Age, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mairon's Ressurection, Melkor's Return, Modern Era Middle Earth, Recovered Memories, Romance, Temporary Amnesia, They Come Back For Two Seconds And Already People Are Dying, Uncovering of Utumno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 23:25:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17069204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstone/pseuds/heartstone
Summary: They look at him as if he is something to be abhorred.***In the far north, the ruins of Utumno are uncovered.





	No Current of Time

I.

They look at him as if he is something to be abhorred.

They stare at him and in their pride they think he does not take notice: but their gazes are palpable to him, laced with poisonous distrust and a poorly hidden fear that dilates their pupils and quickens their breath. As if he was at fault for something irremediable. As if he was a monster. The more menial workers are not so foolishly proud and do not bother to conceal their superstitions- they don’t even meet his eyes and turn their heads to the ground in some nervous bow and mumble some greeting before scurrying away.

The supervisors of the excavation tell him that he was once a worker like them, that he fell and concussed when they were uncovering the southern façade and that he recovered but was stricken with a terrible amnesia. He would have laughed had he not held them in such contempt for the lies that all but dripped from their mouths- as if he could have been one of those common folk! But he remembers that day he was found among the ruins, and something in his posture betrayed this knowledge- or perhaps it was the choler in his eyes. They stopped pestering him about his memory less and less.

Though naught but patches of scenes and sounds, he remembers. That smell of a murky, damp mouldiness alike the inside of a tomb. Long decayed wood and fabric eaten away by voracious time, the thick layer of the dust of disintegrated things which painted every surface. The air was thin and cold, so still and silent that the approaching footsteps intruded up him like a waxing migraine. The sound of stone scraping on stone and strange, uncouth voices and a bright piercing light. He can see the dust in the glaring beam, can see it float and drift.

He was in that room long before the ruins were ever discovered by men. To him it felt like he was born there. To him it felt like he died there and had awoken anew.

They feed him their plain food, clothe him in their strange garb, and teach him their coarse language and he learns quicker than they expected, their surprise only deepening the potency of their distrust. The Common Speech he spoke when he had awakened hadn’t been used in thousands of years. Of the second tongue he could speak they did not understand but the words he spoke stirred even the sternest of the crew to a restlessness, a sadness which turned them unconsciously to the west with a sigh. Of the third tongue he spoke they also did not understand, and the quality of those words made them recoil and tremble, though it moved his heart like no other and the syllables seemed to transmute from his very soul, as if his mouth had contorted to their shape often.

By night the men lock him in a solitary cabin- for his safety, they say. They did not want him to wonder and hurt himself on the open earth of the digging site should the symptoms of his concussion worsen. But he is glad that they lock the door, even in their lies. For to him the nighttime is sacred and it evokes within him visions of another time, another place. . .

 

II.

His visions are always vague, fleeting things, and they happen most often in his sleep. Yet when he awakens they do not fade from his memory like shapes in smoke, rather, they remain clear to him as the memory of happenings that transpired but a second ago. In them he finds a deep-sated peace, a subliminal comfort.

Sometimes he drifts up out of his bed and through the roof, and above him play the northern lights. They twirl in the most beautiful of colours fading from moonlit spectral malachite to azure with thin veins of lapis, the clouds spinning gently, gracefully over the pitch black. Even the cruel stars which he finds he hates disappear behind the many layers of that gossamer curtain. He is soothed by those shifting waves and he fades upwards with the luminous particles and drifts among them and is lost.

But his heart desired most for those dreams wherein he beholds _that man._ He is always there, his presence never leaves even as the aurora fades to black. He can feel him, always, but indistinctly, and it brings to him a tranquility and a yearning all at once. Yet when he catches sight of his silhouette- the slope of his broad shoulders, the slight tilt of his head, the way in which he composed himself- it was all too familiar to be a figment.

Sometimes the man's hair would fall to the floor in waves of glossy lignite and a perfume which he recalled would fall about its tresses like a thurible of incense. He could drown in those locks of midnight, starless hair, that which fell about in a swathe of fragrant darkness. He would drink from them their scent and recall even his earliest memories. . . and the pale lids of that mysterious yet well-known man would open, and universes of empty night would be revealed. . . and those lips. . .

How many times would he awaken, shaking with such an intense longing that he wept for what he knew not? But the ruins! How he felt a pull towards them, towards their looming forms, backlit by the moonlight’s sickly pale! But some strong instinct cautioned him: he must be patient.

His visions would be his anaesthetic for now.

 

III.

In the daytime they begin to show him small artifacts. Hatred welled within him to see the broken fragments displaced- did not they have respect? Was not that ground hallowed from which they stole? They could see the ire flare in his eyes and made to placate him but at the sight of those little statues and scraps of tapestry a different passion flared in his eyes and the men fell silent.

The artifacts were all brittle with the weight of many years, some weather-worn from wind that squeezed through decrepit walls, some by ice which expanded and cracked them further asunder. The fabric was eaten away by whatever could live in the isolated north, the wood was rotting, warped and sweetly fetid. Yet with the sight of what things had not turned to dust he thinks he can feel the energy they still contained, as if the shape of the stone or the weave of the fabric could speak to him the story of its fashioning, of its abandonment and decay: of its very essence.

On some treasures he pauses, and thinks their shape is familiar. Broken, rusted swords, bits of tarnished jewelry, scraps of embroidered banners, faded, and chipped marble. An unbearable nostalgia consumes him and tears blur his eyes. It is difficult to keep his composure in front of them, and they look at him as if he is mad- are they too simple to hear it, their voices? These things which were alive, which they studied so empirically, these things they dissect like the worms which had been devouring them for eras!

They send him to his quarters early and lock the door.

He dreams of the grand halls of a vast fortress- a stygian palace. He dreams of the vast ribbed heights of their passages, the glimmering volcanic stone from which it was carved so lovingly over hundreds of years. He dreams of the places those artifacts were displaced from, where the statues would be placed in which order and in which niche, where the banners would flutter as he walked by, their standards in vibrant gold, in argent and black and cochineal. He knows where the armaments would be hung when once they were untarnished. . .

The halls open up for him as if the place had a mind of its own, as if it was bent to the will of the presence of that man which still he feels around every corner, within every shadow. Music swells from within the very depths of the palace which was at the very heart of the earth. It resonated with his soul and guides him, though he needs it not for direction. He seems to know the passages as if he had travelled along them his whole life, and his hands run along the smooth walls in content.

It grows darker, and the tops of the halls swirl with a mock aurora in welcome. He laughs at the phosphorescent stardust that rains on him and caresses his face with small, gentle hands. The walls begin to shimmer and shadows dance along its surface as if he were carrying a torch, though he has none in his possession. A myriad of other voices join into the distant choir and he hums with them, knowing their song, the cadence of their tune.

When he comes up to the two massive doors he smiles, and his bones tell him that this is _home._ He traces the decorative flourish of the metal on the hinges, his fingertips press against the rivets that keeps the dark bronze in place. He trails along its smooth surface, warm despite the cool air. He pushes against them and they yield. . .

His eyes open and he wakes up to the disappointing emptiness of his proletarian room- his prison of sorts. He chokes on a growl of frustration and falls back into the bed, exhausted by the sights and sounds which call to him from not so far away. Still, somehow, he can hear the music, and still, somehow, he knows that masculine, heady presence is growing and waiting for him in the deep.

 

IV.

They show him less and less of their stolen artifacts and the runes they wished to be translated. Day by day they become more fearful- he can sense it, see it with his piercing eyes which raze them, tear through their flesh and lies. He catches whispers of men speaking of how some have disappeared in the gloom of the ruins, and talk of the men who have fallen ill within its walls. The workers whisper of some shifting shadow in the crumbling remains. But he doesn’t care. Something in him is satisfied at their barely restrained terror.

It didn’t matter anyways. They were irrelevant, they were fools: deaf and blind. They did not deserve to be near to such consecrated soil, to be so close to the music which beckoned him. They were thieves, too small to understand the gravity of their discovery, so stupid to listen to the instinct within them that told them to run, to flee and never look back.

He desired nothing more than to open that door of sturdy bronze in his vision. Each night more was revealed, each night he grew frenzied with the desire to see more, even though he knew what waited for him. Some nights the room would be locked and an orange glow would dimly light the space under the door and he would press his fingers against it to feel the slight breeze, the humid warmth that emanated from beneath it. Some nights the door would be ajar and he would hear the sounds of metal being quenched and metalling hammering, rhythmic and lulling as he approached, the smell of iron, of acid, of smoke.

It awakened something dormant within him, something that made him want nothing else then to be engulfed in those flames, to run his hands along the newly-formed blades being hammered into shape, to breathe deep the air of his forge. . .

Some nights he is tormented, however. The forge is gone and he is sitting on a throne of gold and ivory and ebony, and he is laughing, laughing, laughing. Tears prick his eyes and something grips his chest tightly and makes his legs lead, and a wave slowly laps about his feet and rises to his knees. Yet even as a massive line of foamy surf crashes upon him and the water drowns his mania and snuffs the golden light that he emanates like a torch there is always _him,_ waiting, soothing.

 

V.

He is changing and they know it. He feels it himself, welcomes it. It feels like he is shifting into a more ancient, more natural skin. Like a snake in metamorphosis, shedding its sublunary form. His hair is more vibrant and it seems to shift and shimmer like living flame. Despite the high latitude his skin deepens like the sky in late dusk and his teeth seem sharper though he no longer seems to eat. His skin itches and he thinks if he were to scratch hard enough no blood would be drawn, but magma.

He demands the men to let him into the uncovered ruins and finds that most of the workers have become deathly ill. The few that remain keep their hands on their weapons and tell him that it is too risky, that there is some unknown pathogen from within that they uncovered. He watches their strange weapons, and when they point them at him an anger arises in his eyes, and a wrath unlike any other arises from within the ruins, though they felt it not. He smiles malevolently, and uncovers teeth too sharp and white, and he retreats back into his room.

He waited this long. What was one more day? What was one more night?

 

VI.

He dreams that he is surrounded by twenty rings, twenty rings with twenty voices. They talk over one another in a sea of angered argument which pounds against his mind. He cannot bear it, cannot stomach it and curls up in the middle of them as they contend with one another in some great Theme. He closes his eyes and covers his ears but he can still hear them- they whisper directly into his soul.

The voices fade and fall, one by one. He wakes up with a cold sweat clinging to him but now the music is soft and gentle, and he feels no worries, no doubts. A shuddering relief overcomes him and he feels their connection, can see the shadows of the room mold around him, cocoon him, shield him.

It wouldn’t be long now, the music seems to say.

 

VII.

The man comes to him again in his dreams but he is no longer a ghost. He is solid and distinct, incarnate into matter and they fall to their knees and tremble in each others arms. With each touch he quivers and a wild, untamable pleasure overcomes him, and it takes only a few kisses from those lips and but a stroke of his hand to send him over the brink of this world and into a divine rapture. They collide and hold onto each other and can’t let go, caught in a net of joy and grief.

He wakes up and there is an inferno surrounding him, engulfing him in flame. He smiles again and caresses the dancing waves of cinnabar and ruby which so perfectly complemented those of the aurora in the sky and in his dreams.

 

VIII.

Smoke arose and spread from cabin to cabin and those who were not fallen ill or dead could see but one man among the blazing skeletons of the makeshift houses. The fire seemed not to harm him and the shadows seemed to swirl around him in some hellish mandorla.

But those eyes. . . they condensed in the brightest of conflagrations. . .

 

IX.

The music calls to him, and he remembers, remembers everything.

 

X.

He finds him easily. He knows every nook, every corridor and he follows that Discord with ease. Their connection was strong and mended itself quickly as they came nearer to each other, as their Themes harmonized and their souls mingled.

The room was decayed and stones fell loose from where they were set and crumbled on the floor. The cobwebs where thick and grey with dust and the wood moldered. But _he_ was there, in a brocade that fell apart at the shoulders and hung from him in mere scraps of thread.

How could he forget those eyes, that voice, that smell? His touch, the press of his lips, his song? It didn’t matter now:

No current of time was strong enough.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me when I was reading "The Tomb" by Lovecraft, and I couldn't resist taking the time to write it. I really wanted to find something different to write about because I feel like I repeat myself too much with some themes. I've wanted to do a resurrection-type work with them as an alternative to my other work, Le Lethe, but I didn't like the idea of Mairon being born as a human.  
> Instead you get this! Middle earth in the far future where men don't remember the elves or the Elder Days, and in which they uncover the ruins of a vast, mysterious fortress in the North. Mairon was found within the ruins, completely without memory.  
> I imagine that Melkor was helping him recover from his extremely poor state that he was stuck in since the War of the Ring, helping him to take form again when they were interrupted by the excavation crew. Melkor, being drained from healing Mairon couldn't fight them off and Mairon lives among them for a time, slowly healing and remembering his past as Melkor picks them off one by one and spreads disease. . .  
> And yes, the northern lights are totally meant to call to mind scenes from Sigurfox's lovely works, "Northern Lights" and "Reverie Isle," though they cannot do those beautiful descriptions justice :* :* :*  
> ***


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